Lightning to 30-pin Adapters hands-on

While Apple managed to ship the iPhone 5 to dozens of countries within the span of a couple weeks, it's taken almost a month to get the 30-pin Dock to Lightning connector adapters shipped and into stores. So, now that they're here, how are they?

Okay. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

The dongle isn't really small enough to avoid being annoying, but that's what you get when you need something to translate the new, all-digital Lightning signal into the old, partly analog Dock signal and vice versa. If all you have is an old legacy cable, either stand-alone or as part of an in-car system, it works fine. Anything that's cramped, however, or relies on wrapping around the base or back of the iPhone for stability, probably won't work.

That brings us to the cable. It's the same as the dongle but includes a short length -- 20 cm or 7.8-inches -- of USB cable as well. So, for example, you could attach it inside a battery case or even some types of media docks and still, awkwardly, use them with your iPhone 5, iPod touch 5, or iPod nano 7.

Both are expensive, neither is ideal, neither supports video, and they took far too long to get into stores. That said, if you have a legacy accessory that absolutely needs a 30-pin Dock port to work, it's something you're going to have to pick up.

I tested both out with the iPod connector kit in my car and they both worked fine, exactly how the iPhone 4S worked with the traditional, direct Dock connector. My music played out through the car, and the car controls were recognized by my iPhone 5.

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This is great and all, but what about accessories? If I have a nice, $100 clock radio dock, I can't just replace that functionality with a new lighting cable. You pretty much have to buy the adaptor or buy a whole new one.

I think the doc adapter should have raised the lightning plug a millimeter or two so it would work with cases. I have a minimal bumper (just enough to keep the phone from scuffing on surfaces) with an opening which allows the lighting cable to fit fine. The adapter wants to be flush with the bottom of the phone, which means that a case needs to have an opening for a full 30 pin connector. A 1-2 mm lip raising the lightning plug a bit from the rest of the adapter would have been ideal. I'll need to break out the Dremel to mod the case to accept it.

I have a combo iPad & iPhone charger on my nightstand specifically so that both devices can stand up and keep the nightstand organized and uncluttered, so one of the cable adapters would be suboptimal.